Many medical procedures require a recuperation period during which a patient is immobile in a supine position. It has been found that many patients are susceptible to a variety of problems during such recovery time. Such problems as leg misalignment, foot droop, and heel sores are often encountered in patients who have been bedridden for some time.
Accordingly, the art has included a variety of therapeutic splint devices for maintaining a fixed position or a fixed orientation of a patient's foot and/or leg during recovery. These devices include means for controlling the amount of flex permitted as well as means for preventing hip rotation. Some devices also include means for preventing contact between a patient's heel and the device.
However, while several of these devices attempt to control flexing of the patient's ankle, precise and identifiable control is not fully exercised. For example, some devices use a metal plate that is bent to hold a patient's foot in a pre-set orientation. While the foot can be held in a pre-set orientation, such orientation is not precisely set and cannot be accurately recorded whereby results from one procedure are not fully available for reference in future procedures. Still further, such devices generally are not amenable for use when the patient begins walking as they will not support the patient's weight and still retain the pre-set flex of the patient's ankle.
Therefore, there is a need for a therapeutic device for controlling orientation of a patient's foot with respect to the patient's leg during a recovery period in a precise and repeatable manner, even if the device must support the patient's weight for some period of time.
Several devices also prevent undesired hip rotation during the recovery period using an outrigger arm mounted on the device. However, such arms may interfere with ambulation of a patient if the device is worn during such ambulation. Therefore, there is a need for a therapeutic device for controlling orientation of a patient's foot with respect to the patient's leg during a recovery period in which hip rotation can be controlled in a manner that is not likely to interfere with a patient's walking with the device attached to his or her foot.
With further regard to the ambulation of a patient, if a patient having a foot controlling device in place wishes to walk about, he or she must often remove the device because it cannot bear the burdens associated with a patient's weight, or does not lend itself to avoiding certain particular problems that are encountered by such a patient as he or she initially begins to walk after a period of inactivity. In this manner, some such devices actually discourage a patient from walking during the recovery period. Therefore, there is a need for a therapeutic device for controlling orientation of a patient's foot with respect to the patient's leg during a recovery period which can be used when a patient walks and can actually encourage such walking.
Still further, some treatments requiring a foot control device also require a knee brace. Therefore, to fully co-ordinate such treatments, the foot-controlling device should accommodate the knee brace. Accordingly, there is a need for a therapeutic device for controlling orientation of a patient's foot with respect to the patient's leg during a recovery period which can accommodate a knee brace.